Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross, the BBC presenters at the centre of the "Sachsgate" affair, have been nominated in this year's British Comedy Awards, which will be broadcast on ITV1 next month.

Ross is up for the BCA 2008 prize for best comedy entertainment programme for his BBC1 chatshow, Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, while Brand has been nominated for best live standup performer, MediaGuardian.co.uk understands.

According to a source connected with the event, Ross will compete with ITV1's Harry Hill's TV Burp and Channel 4's The Sunday Night Project.

Brand is understood to have been nominated along with comedians including Alan Carr and Michael McIntyre.

Ross, who has presented the BCA event since it launched 17 years ago, stepped down last month after he was suspended without pay by the BBC for his part along with Brand in the lewd prank phone calls to Andrew Sachs on Brand's Radio 2 show.

The awards will be broadcast live on ITV1 on Saturday December 6.

It is understood that Stephen Fry was approached about fronting the 2008 BCA ceremony but turned it down last week. ITV is expected to announce who the host will be within days.

When Ross stepped down as this year's host, a spokesman said on his behalf: "It's a show he very much enjoys being part of but would not want his participation in this year's event to take away from the awards themselves or the many talented winners of the awards."

The British Comedy Awards is returning to ITV1 having been dropped last year following phone-voting problems.

This involved Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway, which incorrectly won the people's choice award, decided by a viewers' phone vote, instead of The Catherine Tate Show during the 2005 awards show.

An ITV investigation commissioned from Olswang, published earlier this year, found that Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly received the award when Tate should have won.

The pair are also expected to be nominated this year in the best comedy entertainment personality of 2008 category against Alan Carr, Graham Norton and Harry Hill.

A spokeswoman for the awards confirmed that the nominations list was expected to be published soon but was unable to comment further at the time of publication.

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